Some years down the road
by Zitsch
Summary: Somewhere in her late forties Sakura Haruno defied for one, supremely decisive moment all expectations. And while some considered it the most important moment of her life, Sakura considered it not that important at all. And thus Konoha wept bitterly.


Disclaimer: I do not own "Naruto" or earn any money with this fanfiction.

**Some years down the road**

Somewhere in her late forties Sakura Haruno defied for one, supremely decisive moment all expectations. She was at the time long past the prime of any ninja or the time were hidden potential could still be hoped for. She had settled for doing B-ranked missions at the rank of special-jounin which she had been awarded for long service and not in honor of any special ability. As to the other aspects of her life: There were wrinkles in her face and a slump to her shoulders and her hair hung in disregarded strands from her head. At home she wore grey oversized T-shirts and baggy training pants and once a week she had sex with the way to young, freckled guy living one apartment over, who complained about her sagging breasts and aging skin. All in all she had done her duty often enough in body and in soul, that one could believe nothing would change till her most likely violent death some years down the road.

It was one afternoon however in the glorious fall of Fireland that the waning sun hung round and heavy like an overripe fruit in the sky. Sakura had been lazing around all day, writing bad poetry and looking down at the heads of people she barely knew from rooftops she didn´t own. From time to time she laughed at their inherent stupidity and felt in a curious way supremely insulted by it. Not being able to tolerate the presence of civilians any longer she had moved to the central coordination compound, the CCC, which in peace time was in truth a glorified hang out for ninjas.

In the mission hall waited a crowd of Jounin, Chuunin and higher ranking executives. Bored and impatient as she was she challenged one of the ANBU captains to a sparring match. She was not particularly interested in the captain or in the outcome. However it was nearing evening and she wanted to be tired quickly and sleep for once. It was her only method of getting the normal eight hours of rest without waking to early or not getting any sleep at all. The reason why she had difficulty sleeping she didn´t know. But most of the time her mind posed as strange and as dangerous a threat as a high-class ninja from mist. She didn´t trust it for one second and so getting beaten by stronger ninja was her special compulsion and medicine.

So the ANBU captain, whom she had picked that evening, was a good twenty years younger than her and his abilities surpassed hers by several long shots. He was tall with black eyes, black hair, pale skin and an attitude of supremely haughty arrogance. A prodigy, they said everywhere, and even her experience of more than twenty years in the profession could not equalize that kind of math. So she hoped to be thoroughly beaten and bloody and defeated at the end of their spar to find some sleep at the end of her day.

They moved to training field 42 with a crowd of bored Chuunins, who were not as proud as the Jounin and admitted to like watching her get defeated. Over the years Sakura had developed quiet a reputation of needlessly challenging the best and being defeated cruelly for it so the excitement and the bets under the Chuunin ran high.

Their spar began in the normal spirit of exchanging courtesy blows and testing each other's strengths. Between blows the black eyed captain made clear just how easy he was going on her with his already bruising blows. His eyes were blazing. In the meantime Sakura entertained thoughts of being able to sleep, of having to feed her cat and of the lovely freckles on a certain someone's ass.

Even as the captain pushed the fight towards earnestness her thoughts didn´t quiet for one second. She simply couldn´t escape them. When the captain's fist connected with her jugular for the first time she began to think of how she was bored of her life, bored of being thrown to the ground time and time again and bored of her own fucking self. The way she thought and moved, the way her skin sat so tightly on her flesh and the way her mouth stretched when she smiled. But above all she hated the way she thought. In the same patterns, on the same subjects over and over again till she couldn´t sleep at night and didn´t want to look at people in the day. Like a physical manifestation the group of Chuunin shouted and cheered her insignificance.

It was then that the captain began to beat her bloody. He utilized his far superior speed mercilessly and strategically began to incapacitate her. However when he delivered a particularly nasty straight kick to her gut a strange feeling began to permeate her head. It was a slow spread of silence like a stopper pushed carelessly onto a drain. Sakura panted harshly as she stopped for a few seconds in the middle of the field. There was blood trickling down her forehead and her brows clenched together in a familiar path of wrinkles as the captain charged toward her again with the intention of finishing her off. But she couldn´t concentrate on getting defeated with what was happening inside her.

So maybe it was the glint of the afternoon sun, red and glaring on the side of the ANBU captains face. Maybe it was the strange sulfuric wind blowing westward or the slow, dying tumble of the leaves towards the merciless ground. Maybe it was the foreign, aching pull in her heart. What was essential in the end was that the feeling in her head had intensified to a curious climax and was strangling everything into quietude. The stopper was fully in place now.

And suddenly she was there, fully awake. And she spun once, twice like a whirlwind. And her fist connected solidly with the tender skin of the captain's temple, who promptly collapsed from the blow.

Sakura herself didn´t know what had happened in that moment exactly, but she was very satisfied with seeing the captain's black eyes roll backwards into his head.

In the following week after her victory she began to challenge every available ninja, Jounin ranked and up. Most matches she lost but some she won and in Sakuras heart formed a theory. Essentially her style hadn´t changed, she hadn´t learned anything new or upped the quantity of her Taijutsu. It lay in the quality that the improvement was made. But in which way this had happened eluded her still and so did how one improved on a form that was mechanically already perfectly executed. She continued to usher challenges and soon the rate of her losses dwindled rapidly to nil. There was not one fighter in Konoha that could best her. It was a great surprise for all of Konoha.

More importantly however: A month after she had won against the ANBU captain Sakura slept soundly for the first time in over ten years. Other than that her life remained largely unchanged, even though she was now considered the Strongest in Konoha. She still had sex with the freckled guy, her breasts were still sagging and she still didn´t give a flying fuck about her appearance or other people in general. She still lazed around on rooftops all day but with a new feeling of satisfaction that didn´t go away. Not even in the face of her very, very late pregnancy and her subsequent move to the coast of the Land of Summer.

And so it came to be that some years down the road she regularly sat under a palm tree gazing out at a very blue sea and waited for the midday heat to pass so she could begin bothering her seven sun kissed grandchildren. In the end and in the face of all her teammate's respective deaths some ten years prior Sakura considered power to be not that worthwhile at all.

I hope you enjoyed it! - Zitsch


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